The City Ideal

by Ryan Harper

"City of Night" by Courtney Eileen Fulcher

I. 

The city emptied beneath argument: 
manhole flush, respiration 
of the lasttrain, left and clean 
with leaving—brick  
and mortal. 

All madnesses enlarge, all gone remote: 
no street on which to throw the paper, 
no tracts wagging in jambs— 
clean in left light— 
finished of men— 

slouching in delivery, one man, 
his heavy foot scooting down the stairs, 
collides with the white  
day—staggering— 
squints to clear 

orders, bare plans. One man hides high 
in the cupola—dodging clappers, 
the furious tweets  
of the nervy 
passerine— 

muted mass through the cathedral doors, 
turgid as a blurred breviary— 
liturgies of the blunt  
headland—these are columns 
that were our legs— 

walking latent through the drowsy little hours— 
behind the doors assume scriptorium: 
guess on the senses, pray the nones 
finish the afternoon 
fleshed to evening. 

II. 

Not looking himself, not seeing others looking, 
the architect knocks across his plaza, 
steps out the central glare 
into the gray
academies, 

to the shadows of the arches where the heat  
arrives in teams. In high contrast  
the essential hands the keys the crown 
of the metropolis; 
most deaf, 

the sleek colossus surgical in his site— 
fluting soft, cella by far light— 
secures the balustrades 
against everything on  
this earth. 

Stupefied with white dreams, the architect 
accepts flecks of necessary motions, in remainder:  
if need be, the vapor trail, departing mow  
of helicopters; if need be, the blue gull,  
faint bossas of an afternoon—allowing 
for the roulade hummed brief in the corner, 
or loudspeaker summoning brief, bull- 
throated, a bid just out of frame, completely  
out—enough of men in the fatigue of little hours. 

High beneath the rooftop water tower, 
in strict and sliding shade, a woman  
paints over painted 
figures she has visited— 
downstairs 

descending, the grid becomes prismatic, 
the splintering thesis of a lost 
errand. The omnibus 
topples open; now  
she is off, 

en route, retrieving, letting be the riders 
slumped in portrait, breathing 
slow before the passing  
rooftops—frieze,  
dormer. 

III. 

Alternating clouds—rose before the flower shop, 
trash of weekend, sweet challah,
damp jubilee of the street sweeper, 
doormen watering the tree pits— 
premier 

the tender ratchet up the gates—bodega  
dominoes tumbling open, shopworn  
by first browse the holders having groped  
through stocks, the absent 
subject. 

The palazzos, bald in distant light, retain  
symphonic themes on condition 
of the minted corners—city zoned 
in balking strains 
for cloister, 

carnival. These naked, bashful publics— 
clanging pots on the rooftops, hustling  
down the esplanade,  
murmuring stern 
refrains, 

delivering the remote order—squint 
for the grandeur of clean space—respire, 
fantasizing flesh  
enmarbled— 
leave  

the square its grand and strangled hours— 
pretending all exercise an option— 
pray the nones—the amen  
corners, ruins, the city  
ideal.

​Ryan Harper is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Colby College’s Department of Religious Studies.  He is the author of My Beloved Had a Vineyard, winner of the 2017 Prize Americana in poetry (Poetry Press of Press Americana, 2018).  Some of his recent poems and essays have appeared in Kithe, Consequence, Fatal Flaw, Tahoma Literary Review, Cimarron Review, Chattahoochee Review, and elsewhere. A resident of New York City and Waterville, Maine, Ryan is the creative arts editor of American Religion Journal.